


Cast their Shadows on his Hair

by xsaturated



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsaturated/pseuds/xsaturated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even after fourteen years Blaine could never quite make sense of the dizzying push-pull of their relationship. Sometimes he wished he could hate him for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cast their Shadows on his Hair

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: Cooper is Blaine's biological father. I'm mostly just testing out ideas for BBB with a few one-shots, this one got a little out of hand. Title from 'This Old Dark Machine' by James Vincent McMorrow.

There was something about the way Cooper looked at him sometimes.

It happened more often lately; when his brother was back from LA for Christmas (which extended first into New Years and then a week into January) - when he arrived on the doorstep unexpectedly at the start of February for no reason at all. It was getting to be strange to go a month without seeing his face, appearing on their doorstep with some flimsy excuse about cheap flights or missing Ohio weather and folding Blaine up in his arms in hugs that threatened to break him in half.

Something was different. 

He’d noticed it growing up sometimes; Blaine would catch him staring from the corner of his eye with that strange expression, like it was hurting him to look but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. That was usually when the arguing would start; low angry voices muffled by thick walls and Blaine would wonder what he’d done; why his parents would look at him with that sad frustration in their eyes and Cooper couldn’t bring himself to look at him at all.

They were different than most brothers, Blaine knew that. He had always chalked it up to the age difference (he chalked a lot of things up to the age difference since the first time he overheard the word mistake and realized that they were talking about him) that Cooper could never seem to make up his mind how to act around him. Some days they were friends - Cooper would let him trail around after him when he played baseball at the park or he’d carry him around on his shoulders and Blaine would feel dizzy on the heights of that happiness - other days he would go quiet, stare at him from across the room like he didn’t know what to do with him and it was like Blaine could feel that word branded into his forehead, mistake. 

Even after fourteen years Blaine could never quite make sense of the dizzying push-pull of their relationship. Sometimes he wished he could hate him for it.

Blaine had never understood it; why his parents had seemed so relieved when Cooper finally took off to LA, but then he’d be back and looking at Blaine like that again - like there was something breaking him from the inside out, and his parents would get tense and angry again and then there was this.

The silence.

The scratch of cutlery across plates and each mouthful swallowed sounding obscenely in his ears; a flash of blue through Cooper’s eyelashes as he watched from across the table. Blaine could see it in his hands; the tension that wound up through his body, coiling like springs, as silverware trembled between his long fingers. It had been a long year already and Blaine could feel the weight of it holding him down some days; Dalton sometimes felt like more of a retreat than the triumph he’d envisioned and the guilt he carries with him seems like it’s buried in his bones, permanent and leaden and poisonous if he lets himself think about it. 

Sometimes all he wants is one victory to replace that seemingly endless string of defeats.

Something had been building since Cooper arrived on the doorstep the day before, unannounced and with something fierce burning in his eyes when he pulled Blaine into that unforgiving hug. His parents have been subdued; glacial in their welcome in a way that Blaine doesn’t think he’s ever witnessed before. 

Another slow sip of water and Blaine chanced another look, peering up at his brother’s conflicted face through the shadow of his eyelashes as his breath caught in his throat. The silence was broken by the clatter of silverware, Cooper’s eyes stuck on his and his exhale sounded like thunder, trembling and violent like it might just split apart the entire room. 

“I need to tell him.”

There’s a sharp rush of air and he feels rather than hears his mother’s response, “Blaine, go to your-”

“Mom,” Cooper cut her off, firm and determined and Blaine blinked, once, twice but the spell wasn’t broken and he couldn’t look away; couldn’t see the expression on her face or turn his head to see what his father’s silence held. “I need to.”

The click of her heels is all the answer he would get; loud across the hardwood floors, the soothing brush of her hand at the back of Blaine’s neck almost distracting him from the unsteady shudder of her breath. His father was already gone, the door snapping shut in her wake and Blaine doesn’t know what to do when Cooper rounds the table to stand in front of him, pulling him up out of his chair and smoothing his hands over Blaine’s shoulders like he was afraid he might just disappear if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.

Blaine had seen this look on Cooper’s face before; the terror that split his intentions wide open for anyone to see - he’d seen it there last year, half-dazed and confused as he stared up at Cooper’s face from a hospital bed and Blaine couldn’t understand why it was back. They’ve been better after all of that - they talk to each other, really talk to each other - Cooper asks him about Dalton and homework or if there’s any boys that maybe he might like. Blaine liked to think that they might finally be starting to understand each other.

The space disappeared from between them with an exhale of air, Blaine startled out of his breath as Cooper’s arms enfold him and he could hardly steal it back, his face buried into the soft fabric of his brother’s shirt. The arms that surrounded him were trembling and he could feel dread building at the base of throat as fingers soothe through the soft hair at the back of his neck like his mom always used to do when he was sad.

“You’re not my brother.”

His spine stiffened, the hands that had hesitantly settled at Cooper’s back dropping like stones to his side as something hurt bloomed in his chest. Blaine’s mouth dropped open, forming the shape of a why into Cooper’s shoulder as he refused to release him; his arms squeezing tighter the more that Blaine tried to squirm away. “Blaine, you’re my-”

“No,” he replied; sharp and brittle and he knew it - how could he not know - how could he have missed it. How could he -

“Blainey,” Cooper coaxed, soft and a little desperate - his fingers twisted tight in the back of Blaine’s sweater like he was afraid to give even an inch lest Blaine slip away from him. And Blaine wasn’t that child anymore; he wasn’t six years old and trailing around behind Cooper with stars in his eyes - he was fourteen - he wasn’t so desperate for his approval that his heart hurts when his - his - when Cooper wouldn’t even look at him. “I wanted you, I swear I wanted you-”

It stung; burning hot in his eyes and thick in his throat because he had always known, hadn’t he? That he didn’t quite fit. That he never quite belonged. He had always been out of place, like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong place. He was the mistake, something that his parents - Cooper’s parents - had cleaned up so Cooper wouldn’t have to.

“- Mom and dad promised to look after you,” Cooper rambled out, fingers clenching into his back as his words tumbled out of him, one after another, so quickly Blaine almost couldn’t catch them. “I wanted to - I wanted you, but they said I was too young and that I needed to figure out how to look after myself before I could look after you too. Blainey I’m so-”

He cut him off with a soft shudder of breath against the damp material of Cooper’s shoulder, his arms curling up around his back and clinging on tight. The words wouldn’t come, sticking uselessly to his tongue when he tried to speak, so instead he just held on, burying his face into Cooper’s neck and hoping that maybe he would just understand what it was he was trying to say. 

Maybe this was where he was meant to fit; bracketed in arms that knew him better than he thought he knew himself.

“I know,” was all the response he got, a hand curled soft at the back of his neck. “I know.”

Maybe they understood each other better than he’d thought.


End file.
